


Five Things That Never Happened To Dean Winchester

by hishn_greywalker



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 5 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-18
Updated: 2006-11-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 19:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10669380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hishn_greywalker/pseuds/hishn_greywalker
Summary: Five things that never happened to Dean Winchester.





	Five Things That Never Happened To Dean Winchester

**Author's Note:**

> There was a challenge issued to fandom something like 5 years and a million fandoms and TV shows and Books and lives ago. This challenge was called the "Five Things That Never Happened Challenge." This challenge was to take five things that NEVER HAPPENED EVER EVER and write them, past or present things that didn't happen as far as canon is concerned for the fandom. I don't remember where it started, hell I didn’t even know there was an original challenge until I'd read like 70 million of the stories, but it's something I like to write. So, basically, you write five things that could have happened, but didn't. I usually only do a "one thing", but this time I managed five.

His father says he'll be back in six nights, no longer, and that there's enough food for him and Sammy for two weeks. There's a duffle bag of weapons under the bed, but neither say anything about it. Dean knows to take it if he and Sammy have to leave, so they don't need to mention it.

After 10 nights, Dean knows they need to leave. His dad is still gone, they don't have much money, and food will run out in a few days. Dean is only nine, but he isn't stupid.

So he packs up their stuff and makes sure Sammy, who's only five but really brave, has a knife tucked away on him, while Dean has a gun and that they are both dressed in layers. Sammy carries the backpack with their clothes, while Dean carries the weapons bag, except no one can know that it has weapons in it.

The last thing he does before they leave is call Caleb to tell him that he needs to send Bobby to pick up the Impala at the hotel and even though Bobby rushed, he was too late.

The boys are gone.

 

Dean doesn't know much about getting by without an adult, but he knows he needs food, money, and shelter. They can sleep outside while it's still spring or summer, but once winter comes, Colorado is going to be too cold.

So now, he needs money, food and to get somewhere warm, like California. All of that takes adults, so Dean knows he needs to learn quickly to get what he wants and needs from them.

He knows he can't say anything about their dad not being there. Instead, he makes up stories to get things they need and tells Sammy not to talk at all. Except when he's six, Sammy starts making up stories along with Dean, and somehow, what he says sounds so real, especially coming from a cute kid with soft curls and the widest eyes.

Dean lets Sam talk again, and they continue conning people and moving around. Dean knows Sammy needs to get an education, so he steals backpacks from kids, and learns everything he can from the books, just so he can teach Sammy. By the time Sam is nine, he and Dean are learning nearly the same stuff, things that are advanced even for kids that are Dean's age.

All this time, they never stop training. They watch through windows – self-defense classes, and any other type of fighting they can find. They pick fights to get the practice, and they rarely ever lose. When they get hurt, they go to hospitals and sneak out after using IDs they've stolen from local kids.

Soon they've a collection of IDs, and then they use stolen debit and credit cards. They never use them for long, but they get what they can out of them.

At age 13, Dean starts to apply for credit cards under other peoples’ names, and at 14, they run into their first ghost.

They take care of it with out any trouble, having nearly memorized the journal that their dad had left behind. The journal had been their dad's life – something that he'd started right after their mother died, and never stopped updating. It contained information on every supernatural thing that he'd ever heard about or come across, and both boys had gone through it time and time again over the years.

So now they hunt, and it isn't long before they're low on ammo. Dean dials the familiar number, and they both pray it's not disconnected. It's not and Caleb answers with a sleepy growl that disappears completely when Dean speaks.

There's wonder in his voice as he agrees to meet them to replenish their ammo and it's still there when they meet him two weeks later. It doesn't take much for Dean to convince him to call Bobby about the Impala, and it takes just a few flashed ID's before they're back in it. Fuck that Dean is just 14 and Sammy 10. Sam could drive a car if he had to, let alone Dean being able to. They were both familiar with hotwiring them.

So now they're stocked up on ammo and everything is packed in the back of the car. Dean didn't know how grateful he would be to not to be living out of the bags on their backs.

They do that for eight years, fighting and moving and hunting. They do it until little Sammy is Sam, and he's gotten into Pre-Law at Stanford, and he's giving Dean _that look_. So Dean puts his life on hold so they can go live in Palo Alto for a few years. They share an apartment while Sam goes to school – how he convinced anyone of his grades Dean still doesn't know, though he would have probably gotten good grades anyway – and Dean works odd jobs in between small hunts.

Sam meets a girl, Jess, who doesn't ask questions. They fall in love and soon she's living in Sam's room with him. Then they get a message that their dad's alive, and they race off to find him, but they don't, they just find a room, a new journal, and a case involving a Woman In White. When they get home, Jess on the ceiling, like their mom, and Sam looks at Dean, they both know.

They will not stop again.

 

**2.**

Dean doesn't know why he wakes up when he does but smoke clouds his nose and mouth, and his chest hurts. He doesn't know where his mom or dad is, but he's scared and it's so hot.

When the firemen come and rescue him, he's not scared because they sound like Luke and Han in stormtrooper masks, and they were good guys. He holds on tight to his melting action figure of Luke dressed in the white stormtrooper suit as he's carried out of the building, not crying, not understanding.

Later his Aunt Cynthia will tell him what a brave little boy he is, as she tries to explain to him that Mommy and Daddy and Sammy aren't coming home again, not ever. Ms Missouri tells him that he escaped by a miracle, and they're lucky to have him. But Dean doesn't understand, doesn't know what he did that was so bad that he couldn't go with Mommy and Daddy and Sammy, wherever they went.

 

**3.**

When Dean was 17, he got an early admittance letter from Western Washington University, offering him a full ride as far as tuition went, and need-based help for living expenses. He had applied as a student from Washington, a home-schooled kid, because every now and then he and Sammy, just for the hell of it, would go and take an equivalency test at a home-school network they were passing by, and it was enough for him to be in the system when someone called to see if he was really a student there. When his SAT scores showed up – 200 points higher than he had ever thought they would be, he knew he had a chance at something.

Dean loved to hunt and fight, but he loved history and mythology too. It was all connected to hunting in his mind, and hunting was more what he did and what he was raised to do, rather than the person he actually _was_.

So Dean accepted and waited until August to tell his Dad. He told Sammy long before, and even though he sulked and pouted for almost two weeks, Sammy never stopped following Dean around, never stopped being his shadow like he always was, and never stopped curling up against him at night, because if he didn't, he got nightmares about a fire he didn't remember.

His Dad and he fought like they never had before. His Dad's last, shouted words _if you leave, don't bother coming back_ echoed in his mind for a long time after it had taken place.

And then he'd been gone a year, and he was working as a mechanic and as one of the kids who worked for the school, because then he got money that paid for books and extra fees, which really helped out on rent. Then one night Sammy was there, but Dad wasn't. Next thing he knew Sammy was enrolled at the local high school – Bellingham High, or something – and there they were.

Without a second thought to their Dad – maybe Sammy had one, but Dean didn't – Sammy moved in with Dean, and then Dean finished his BA in History, and Sammy was offered a full ride to Stanford.

Neither had thought of hunting ghosts in a long time, though Dean still slept with a knife under his pillow and Sammy had a gun in his nightstand drawer and salt was ground into their doorways and windowsills.

 

**4.**

Dean only vaguely remembers the night. He was four and the neighbors didn't have a kid his age, but they had a little girl Sammy's age that his mom took Sammy over to play with. Dean can sort of remember wondering how much two little kids could play, but his mom liked it, so he never said anything, not that he would have anyways at his age.

There was a big fire one night about two weeks after Halloween. Mrs. McAllister had died saving little Linda and not a week later the house was up for sale. Timmy had dared him to go in a week or two later and he had ended up in Linda's room. When he looked up, he could see the black scorch marks and something crusted on the ceiling.

He dreamed of it for months after, and every now and then he would wake up with his mother or brother shaking him through out the years.

The first time it happened after he moved in with Cassie, she drug what little he could remember of the dream – the nightmare – out of him. Lucinda McAllister was pinned to the ceiling where the darkest, crustiest part of the scorch marks had been when he'd looked up, and had burst into flames as she dripped blood onto little Linda, who in the end had survived.

When he was home visiting years later, he sees Linda once more as she talks to the new owner – a young single mother with two children. She's grown up well, looks healthy and her blonde hair could be spun wheat.

But when she meets his eyes across the street, something in them tells a story of a girl who never really existed because she grew up so young and he shivers for what might have been.

**5.**

Dean was 26, passing though Palo Alto with his wife, Cassie, to see a friend from college (he was nearly a lawyer now) when he saw him. Dean Norris had grown up relatively privileged. He rarely had nightmares after his first couple of years with his adoptive family, and it was only every now and then that he felt as if there should be someone else there, to have his back, to catch him, to just _be_ there.

But when he saw him, a messy haired kid a few years young who was walking with a pretty blonde girl, the feeling came to the forefront and the name _Sammy_ , a name he hadn't called out in years, and only then in the throws of nightmares, was on his lips so fast he almost said it aloud. Then the kid caught his eye and stopped, eyes wide, and they stared until Cassie tugged on Dean's arm and he looked down.

When he looked back up again, the feeling was gone and the kid was walking away, but years later, he still sees that kid in his mind whenever he thinks that maybe someone was supposed to just _be there_.

_18 November 2006_  



End file.
